First-of-its-kind study shows gun-free zones reduce likelihood of mass shootings. According to new findings, gun-free zones do not make establishments more vulnerable to shootings. Instead, they appear to have a preventative effect.

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(24)00164-9/fulltext

From the linked article:

First-of-its-kind study shows gun-free zones reduce likelihood of mass shootings

A new study challenges the belief that gun-free zones attract active shooters. In the first quantitative study of its kind, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, researchers found that gun-free zones may actually reduce the likelihood of mass shootings. According to their findings, gun-free zones do not make establishments more vulnerable to shootings. Instead, they appear to have a preventative effect.

The study’s most striking finding was that gun-free zones were less likely to experience an active shooting than gun-allowing zones. Of the 150 shootings examined, 48% took place in gun-free zones, while 61.3% of the control locations (where shootings did not occur) were gun-free. This indicates that gun-free zones are not disproportionately targeted by shooters.

In fact, establishments that prohibited firearms were found to be 62.5% less likely to have an active shooting incident compared to places where guns were allowed. This association remained strong even after adjusting for potential confounding factors, such as the distance of the establishment to the nearest police station.

Contrary to claims that shooters deliberately target gun-free zones, the findings suggest that these areas may actually be safer from mass shootings. This could have significant implications for public policy, particularly in light of recent legal challenges to gun-free zones. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen made it more difficult to impose restrictions on carrying firearms in public, but gun-free zones remain a notable exception.

Who could have possibly imagined that having less guns in an area would lead to less people getting shot? What a ridiculous concept.

Most people that oppose this actually agree but just naturally enjoy being stubborn and not backing down.

The title is just the study authors being deliberately obtuse.

If you define “mass shooting” by number of victims, 95% of the volume is gang violence or “person A was angry at person B and shot at B and their buddies”. The data supports that this happens less often in gun free zones (though whether or not that’s caused by banning guns or by the fact that such zones tend to be public places with lots of unrelated bystanders is not able to be determined with this correlational data).

But when the study authors say “Contrary to claims that shooters deliberately target gun-free zones, the findings suggest that these areas may actually be safer from mass shootings.”, they’re deliberately misunderstanding those claims. Those claims are about the sensational news stories about someone invading a school with a bag full of guns, or trying to kill a bunch of people in a church, not more “normal” (unfortunately) violence between gang members.

Gun free zones may reduce overall murders (which is what is ultimately important), but this study can’t show it purely based on correlation, because of the correlation between the type of place and whether or not those places are gun free. And this study is definitely not rebutting the claims it pretends to rebut, because the authors are deliberately misunderstanding those claims.

Been saying this for years.

Annosexuals will go into cognitive dissonance however.

What does that even mean “first of it’s kind”?
There are countries that don’t have (on average) three mass shootings every three days.
The majority of the world don’t have mass shootings in that number.

>The study excluded shootings in schools because all schools are federally mandated gun-free zones, which would skew the comparison.

I think this is a very important observation their glossing over. If there are gun-allowing zones and gun-free zones, then perhaps it is that gun-free zones have less impulsive shootings. but if everywhere was a gun free zone there’d be no real reduction in the rate of overall shootings.

Of course, having a data set this small and this cherry picked, the report is highly suspect regardless. You could probably prove pot caused brain cancer if you limited yourself to 300 total cases.

And 100% of school shootings have taken place in gun free zones. It’s not really that groundbreaking.